


i need a friend (but i'm a vampire smile, you'll meet a sticky end)

by coconuticecream (staymonkey)



Category: Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), New Teen Titans, Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Titans (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Vampirism, Soft & Sweet, Transformation, Vampire Turning, Vampire!Dick, platonic intimacy, robin!jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 02:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21420559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staymonkey/pseuds/coconuticecream
Summary: Helena comforts a recently-turned Dick Grayson.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli & Dick Grayson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	i need a friend (but i'm a vampire smile, you'll meet a sticky end)

**Author's Note:**

> title song: vampire smile, kyla la grange

Dick lounges in bed, naked but for his sheets, forearm slung over his gritty eyes. His bronze skin is ashen, and the sliver of sunlight that cuts through an unfortunate gap in Dick’s curtains just serves to tire him. Not even the clattering of disturbed pewter and Alfred’s sharp intake of breath on the other side of Dick’s door stirs Dick from his uncharacteristic stillness, although Dick listens passively.

“Master Jason,” Alfred’s muted but reproachful voice seeps through the wood. Dick remains like statuary, although guilt nestles in his gut. “What are you doing, lurking about? Master Bruce is to be heeded, not emulated.”

The Manor’s heirloom pipes groan. Elsewhere, a floor above Dick, heavy footfalls thud in an aimless, pacing pattern.

Jason’s lungs rattle with the vestige of his school’s most recent bronchitis outbreak when he says, “Are you going to wake up Dick?”

“Master Richard is grown,” Alfred huffs. “It’s not my place to wake him. He manages his own schedule.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, snot-nosed and nasally. “But you wake Bruce up when Bruce won’t leave his room. And Dick’s been in there ever since B drug ‘im in looking like he lost a fight with a sackful of rocks. I just thought... I just thought.”

Dick’s lips part in a grimace as his aching stomach turns. “It’s okay,” Dick grinds out. “You can come in. I’m here.” But his raw throat is like sandpaper, and his voice is little more than a gruff whisper.

“He’s recovering,” Alfred says. “You know better than any child should the sort of disability this lifestyle inflicts. Master Richard needs time and space to heal, I’m sure he’ll welcome your company when he’s ready.”

The pipes groan, footfalls thud, Jason rattles, and the sound of rushing blood above it all. Dick twitches and licks his lips.

“Not a kid,” Jason mutters, with a scuff that must have been him kicking the baseboard. Alfred hums his disapproval, and so Jason says, “and I don’t care if he never comes out, I just didn’t know Nightwing was a p—” Jason cuts himself off. Alfred clears his throat. “—a lightweight, that’s all,” Jason amends.

“I won’t warn you about respecting your elders,” Alfred sighs, voice growing distant as the two walk away. The pressure behind Dick’s eyes eases. “But you’d do well to—“

The crack of Dick’s window dislodging from the frame to which it is nailed elicits a pitiable hiss from between Dick’s bared teeth. A head pops past the curtain, spilling sunlight into the room. Dick reflexively flinches away and shifts his forearm to better shield his peripheral, but he grins into the cool fabric of his pillow. His skin prickles and radiates an uncomfortable heat, but a pleasant warmth pools in his belly.

“Hey, you,” Helena coos, dropping the curtain and inadvertently allowing Dick to lower his arm. From the edge of his vision, he can see that she’s dressed down in her weekend athleisure, her thick hair tied back into boxer braids. Only a dewy glow across the planes of her cheeks betrays the painstaking effort she made in scaling the Manor and prying Dick’s sealed window open. “Renee says you tangled with a monster cult and then disappeared. Figured Bruce grabbed you, but he never tells us anything and I wanted to see you.” 

Dick shifts, to test his own physical integrity. His bones whine, his muscles ache, and his skin feels dry like discarded fall leaves. Still, Dick heaves his torso, heavy as lead, up on his forearms and musters a half-cocked grin on the exhale of a shaky breath.

“I’m okay,” Dick wheezes. “I like your hair.”

Helena sucks in a sharp breath as she soaks in his pale, pupil-less eyes, his sallow skin, the bags which hang heavy under his eyes. “Oh, Dick,” she murmurs, eyes raking over him. “Dick.”

Dick frowns. He lowers himself back into the loving embrace of his sheets and pillows and squeezes his eyes shut. But not before he catches Helena making the sign of the cross.

“Please,” he murmurs weakly, just barely audible over the hushed prayer Helena murmurs to herself. “Spare me my vanity. I know I look like shit.”

Helena quiets, but only for a moment before she says, “No, Dick. You’re as beautiful as ever. But you— you know, don’t you?”

Dick opens his eyes. He licks his teeth, catching and tearing his tongue on his needle-sharp canines. Thick, sticky, anise-tasting blood blossoms in his mouth. He swallows. “I know,” he confirms. “B knows too. Constantine was here earlier, he gave the initial diagnosis. Kate and a few of her work friends gave me a once over. We haven’t exhausted expert opinion or anything, but we have a pretty good grasp on the situation.” He glances over to see that she’s fiddling with the cross necklace that hangs from her neck even when she’s in costume.

“Then, you know what you need to do,” Helena urges. She slinks closer, and Dick flinches when she reaches for him. But then she brushes her thumb across his lower lip before pressing her wrist there instead.

Dick jerks back into the pillows and flashes Helena his wild eyes. She places her other hand on her hip.

“Well? It is what it is. You’re not in any position to keep pouting. Dick, you’re gray and... gaunt. Self-deprivation is Bruce’s burden. But you? You’re like me. You and I know how to take a punch. So take the punch, and then we can hit the town together. I’m craving arancini, are you in the mood for Sicilian? It’ll be my treat, but you’ve got to get out of bed first.”

Dick blinks at her. He swallows. He inhales just to gulp down the heady scent emanating from the thin skin of Helena’s offered wrist. “Are you proposing I snack on your wrist so that we can go pick a fight with the local mafia? Do you think I’m going to eat the mafia for you?” He tries and fails to suppress the bubbly, tender warmth that unfurls in his chest.

Helen cocks her eyebrows. “We don’t have to go for Italian. Oracle has info on some Court chicanery, how’s WASP sound? I’ve got crushed red pepper in my utility belt if it’s too bland.”

Dick nuzzles Helena’s wrist with his nose, to soothe his craving. It doesn’t. “I won’t kill,” he warns.

Helena relaxes into a soft smile. “I know. You’re still you, Dick. I know it all feels fatalistic now, but it’ll take more than this for you to lose yourself. So, hurry up. I’m hungry too, and I know a great mob front that just opened up downtown.”

“Mob fronts have the best food,” Dick agrees. He opens his mouth, gingerly positioning the points of his sharpest teeth against the side of Helena’s wrist. Attempting to take from the inside of her wrist was far too risky, Dick won't have it.

“It’s because they’re just sharing whatever it is they’re feeding their own. It’s authentic. Mass production and critical success siphon the love right out of good food. Little lower, you’re gonna hit bone if you try it there.”

Dick obligingly lifts his teeth and moves down Helena’s forearm, reapplying them to a meatier portion of flesh, closer to her elbow. He pauses, but when Helena tucks his hair behind his ear and taps his cheek encouragingly, he presses his teeth to skin until the skin breaks under the weight of his jaw. Helena flinches, but then she relaxes with a slight sigh.

From there he is quick to unhook his teeth and lap at the welling blood instead. The first swipe stings his cut tongue, but by the second, his cut heals. As starved as he is, the salty-sweet flavor that coats his tongue is an overwhelmingly decadent relief. But he loves Helena, and he is careful to only take what bubbles from the wound. And when it stops bleeding, he’s well enough to fish the first aid kid from under his bed.

As he disinfects and wraps her arm, she says, “You could have taken more, you know. They take nearly a pint when you donate blood.”

He finishes taping down the gauze. “It was going to hurt more if I sucked at the wound. Besides, it’s good to go slow when you haven’t eaten in a while. Easier on your stomach.”

She reviews his handiwork and, satisfied, lowers her arm. “Oh, it didn’t hurt at all, not after the initial sting. I have half a mind to bottle your spit and sell it to vigilantes as a topical anesthetic.”

“Oh,” Dick says, tension draining from his shoulders. “I don’t think I realized how much I needed to hear that until you said it.”

Helena smiles. She reaches out and places her hand over Dick’s. “You’re still good, Dick. You’ll always be one of the good ones.” She pecks his forehead. “Now, _allora, tesoro, andiamo a mangiare_.”


End file.
